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Rabbit Baked with Onions

A rabbit baked in layers of onions and bacon, seasoned with pepper and salt, simmered in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Rabbit Baked with Onions

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash the rabbit and cut it into pieces.

  2. Slice the onions and cut the bacon into short slices.

Layer and bake

  1. Line a pie dish with sliced onions, sprinkle with pepper and salt.

  2. Layer the rabbit pieces on top of the onions and cover with bacon slices.

  3. Repeat the layering until all ingredients are used.

  4. Pour the stock over the layered ingredients.

  5. Cover the dish tightly and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Rabbit + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long, covered baking.
Onions
Soften and turn sweet as they bake, forming a flavourful base layer.
Bacon
Its fat bastes the meat and adds savoury, salty flavour as it renders.
Stock
Provides moisture so the layers steam and stay juicy in the covered dish.

The step that matters

Cover the dish tightly and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours. A tight cover traps steam so the rabbit cooks gently in its own moisture and stock. Without it, the meat can dry out before the connective tissue softens over the long bake.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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